Designing Dreams

Book of Life’s La Muerte Costume for Montreal Comic Con

Finally I have decided I’m going to this year’s Montreal Comic Con! And I have decided after a long, long, LONG discussion with my boyfriend and family that I will make the costume of La Muerte from the Movie The Book of Life. It is actually a bit late to start a costume, but since I have a whole “free” month, I decided to take the challenge!

The Book of Life’s La Muerte a.k.a. La Catrina

Since I saw that movie, I cannot stop thinking about how awesome and beautiful that character is…Seriously! She was designed by Sandra Equihua and Jorge Gutierrez (The Director of the movie), and if you have not yet see that movie, I highly recommend it. It is just delightful story surrounded by a cool mix of US pop & Rock and Traditional Mexican music and above all a parade of magnificent designs and colors in the scenarios and characters. Don’t forget the music was composed by Gustavo Santaolalla!

So back to La Muerte or La Catrina how is called in the Spanish version, I think she has a great character design that I would try to recreate this year! To guide myself in the recreation of this character I used images from the film and some sketches I found online.

Sarah Marino’s illustration for the film The Book of Life

In order to do that I need to do:

1. The most giant Hat in the universe, which is adorned by light up candles, flowers (hand made) and hanging skulls (hand made also).

2. Hand painted dress with traditional Mexican designs and a 1.5 meter long train with puffed sleeves all decorated with yellow flowers (hand made of course because I could not find neither nice flowers or that could make them on time for the event) and mores skulls

3. Extra long black wig with lots of volume.

4. Awesome crazy make up all over my face, arms and neck!

So far I have managed to make 300 hand made flowers in taffeta and organza(Tutorial for those interested to come), the basic shape of the dress which I will start painting tomorrow I hope, the hat shape and I just started the skulls…. there is still a lot of work to be done, I have not even started with the candles which is really the most tricky part, thankfully I have a very incredible, smart and creative boyfriend and the smartest sister who is also an engineer and know all about cables and connections; so I will keep you updated!!!